


The Next Best Thing

by DracoMaleficium



Category: Batman (Comics), Injustice: Gods Among Us
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Behind the Scenes, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Substitution, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 23:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10729491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/pseuds/DracoMaleficium
Summary: Set during "Injustice: Ground Zero" issue 6 (or Joker's chapter in the game).You do not take away a Batman's Joker.





	The Next Best Thing

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't know what it is about Joker's birthday that motivates me to write hurt/comfort angst that borders on infidelity, but there ya go. Another project that's been sitting in my drafts for far too long that I decided to dust off for the occassion, and because I had nothing better to offer for today. 
> 
> Enjoy the drama!

“I don’t like you,” Joker tells Batsy O-Two with a pout he decides is probably one of his personal best, the way it stretches his mouth as low as it will go to the point where it hurts.

His efforts are tragically wasted on Batsy O-Two, though, since Batsy O-Two isn’t even looking at him. He’s too busy doing the Silent Dark Knight number, which, fair enough, Joker supposes it _is_ a classic. He can appreciate a good classic, especially when it goes so remarkably well with Batsy O-Two’s Extra Dark, Extra Knight getup. It only makes sense that he’d try to be Extra Silent to complete the picture, which means that Joker will just have to be Extra Joker to keep their double act going. 

He relishes the challenge. _His_ Batman had been getting a little stale lately. And that’s okay. Everyone suffers a touch of burn-out every once in a while, and it only stands to reason that the brighter you burn, the faster you run out of fuel. 

For Batsy — a supernova cloaked in midnight — that would hold doubly true.

And if Joker’s honest with himself (which he sometimes is, inasmuch as he can decide what honesty means at any given moment) he had been feeling somewhat off his game too. Which was partly why he’d resorted to dealing with his old pal Lexie, and even he must admit that the nuke thing was more than a little tacky, if not outright desperate.

But can anyone blame him for wanting to breathe a little spark back into their relationship, and failing that, to let that spark burn them both alive? 

It’s all turned out for the best, anyway. This little unscheduled field-trip is bound to reinvigorate both of them, and Joker finds himself all tingly with anticipation at the thought of all the great gigs they’ll get up to together once the good guys clean things up. He giggles to himself, carried away on delicious excitement, and then Batsy O-Two — Joker almost forgot about him — grabs his wrist so tight his hold burns. This jolts Joker right back into the moment and his own resolution, and he grins, because why not have some fun as he waits for the world to sort itself out?

“Did anyone ever tell you that you might have gone a teensy lil’ bit overboard with the armor, darling?” he asks, twisting to get a good look at Batsy O-Two’s frown, which is just as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. “Not to insult your ever-impressive bat-bulge, but someone might think you’re overcompensating.”

Batsy O-Two lets him laugh that one out, which is really rather gallant of him. He still hasn’t said a word. Joker steals another look at him, and then, over his shoulder, he spots Harley O-Two glancing after them fearfully but — curiouser and curiouser! — making no move to stop them as Joker is being marched away from the delightfully colorful gaggle of bespandexed do-gooders. Of whom Harley O-Two is apparently part. Huh. Definitely something to think about during those long nights at Arkham, and oh, _Arkham_! Joker is giddy with curiosity about this world’s version of it. He wonders what Other Him did with the place. He wonders if his cell looks the same. He wonders if the showers still run rusty red sometimes, or if the pipes groan to the same old creaky beat, or if the air vents still smell of onion. Maybe good old Aaron Cash hasn’t lost his hand to Crocy in this world, in which case Joker will just have to tear it off himself to keep things in balance. It’s not his fault — that’s just how things gotta be.

But Batsy O-Two keeps gripping his arm, and his heavy hand presses down on Joker’s shoulder, and now that they’re out of the main hall and in some kind of drab, dingy corridor Joker can _smell_ him, and all thoughts of Arkham are blown clean out of his head. The smell does that to him. The smell and the touch, and now that he has both bearing down on him he isn’t quite able to keep Batsy O-Two and His Batsy separate anymore. Because the smell is the same, almost exactly the same, with just the right amount of wrongness to keep things fresh and interesting, and ohhhhh, Joker’s knees are getting weak. He slows down just so Batsy O-Two can bump into him, just so Joker can lean back and inhale and _feel_ , and yes, yes, he is in that happy place again, the place where there is just him and his Bat and everything else just pops out of existence because they no longer need it. It’s like — it’s like walking through pink mist, or cotton candy, except not at all because cotton candy is all sticky and this feeling is not sticky at all. No, it’s floaty, floaty like bubble baths and sea foam only if someone ran an electric current through them, and without hesitation Joker lets himself coast on it, on this floaty, bubbly, tingly feeling of the void being breached, of the world coming alive, of him and Bats together. Because it may not be his Bat but it’s A Bat and that is more than good enough for now, more than good enough to get him to shiver and tingle and pitty-pat into that familiar thrilling overdrive and —

They round a corner. It brings them into what Joker supposes used to be an office, or maybe a large empty storeroom or something along those lines — he doesn’t care. He hardly has any space left in him for registering his surroundings, not when Batsy’s closeness fills him out down to the tiniest nook and cranny. Still, he manages to marshal enough sense to observe: 

“Well. This isn’t Arkham.”

The laugh track in his head isn’t quite loud enough at that and he means to follow it up with something else, something to truly give the punchline this badum-tsss! quality. 

He never gets the chance. 

Because then all at once there are two leather-clad arms winding around him, one at his throat and the other at his middle, and the laugh track dies. 

Everything dies.

All the noise, all the buzz-fizz-bang static in his head — gone.

Because Batman has grabbed him from behind and is holding him, and the hand around his throat squeezes tight enough to catapult all air out of Joker, and there’s a mouth breathing heavily into Joker’s shoulder, and the breath gets louder, and Joker can no longer remember what it was like to ever listen to anything else.

And the grip isn’t particularly strong at first but the longer it lasts the tighter it gets, until Joker can’t breathe in the most literal, physical, I Like Purple But Surely My Face Shouldn’t Look Like That way. And while the thought of Bats breathing for them both is appealing, something like a rational thought struggles through the sparkling red haze and the cotton and the foam, and Joker laughs and cracks out, “Hey, not that I don’t appreciate the clandestine cuddles, but is this really the most romantic place you could —”

There’s a weight pushing into him. Joker’s knees, already jelly-weak, give out, and the weight is too much, and he can’t support _himself_ in these circumstances let alone them both, and suddenly they’re doing what has got to be the pratfall to end all pratfalls and sprawling in comical inelegance of the highest order right on the dirty, stinky floor. 

“Sheesh,” Joker struggles through the thrill of Batman’s weight on top of him, “did someone get the license plate for that Bat-tank?”

The arms disappear from around him. Joker has barely a blink to mourn their loss before those same hands lock behind his head and neck, and a knee drives into the small of his back, and his nose gets far too intimately acquainted with the grit and dust where it’s squashed against the floor, the full armored Extra Dark weight crashing down on him. 

And then an Extra Dark, Extra Gravelly voice whispers, “You” right into Joker’s ear. The word burns a path clean through Joker’s abused synapses, lighting everything up as it goes. 

“Me,” Joker agrees, wheezily. The word scratches at the back of his throat. His nose explodes in little pulses of pain, and he’s delighted to discover he’s bleeding all over the floor. “Whatever you’re paying your janitor, it’s too much,” he judges with the kind of razorblade jitters that sometimes take over when he’s feeling too much all at once and doesn’t quite know what to do with it all. His body and mouth tend to run off on their own then, as they’re doing now, his finger coming to swipe a gloved finger to gather some of the dust. “I’ve seen cleaner floors in Clayface’s cell.”

There’s a growl in his ear, pained and feral, and oh, it’s one of the most beautiful sounds in the whole wide world. Almost as beautiful as the sight he’s treated to when Batsy O-Two lets up and then hauls him back to his jelly-wobbly feet, and glowers at him with the heartbreak the multiverse itself could not contain if it tried. 

He has but a firework’s bang of a moment to admire it though, because all at once that gorgeous face blurs and spins under the force of an armored fist connecting with his cheek. Over the crunch of bone, over the new delectable spill of pain as he stumbles back onto the floor, Joker’s soul is singing.

Oh, but this is simply beautiful. 

“You destroyed this world,” Batsy O-Two is growling, driving a fist into Joker’s stomach. He sounds like broken glass, all torn and shattered and lethal, and his hands feel much the same. “I’ve spent the last five years in hell trying to clean up _your_ mess!”

Not mine, Joker wants to protest. As much as he’d love to take the credit for this particular masterwork, he’s not the kinda guy to steal someone else’s hard-earned laurels, even if the _chef du jour_ is currently incapable of stepping up to accept them on account of being very, decisively, irrevocably Superman’s Fist-Shaped Hole in His Chest dead. That’s not the kind of thing one can just walk off, and Joker would know — he’s walked off his fair share of similarly lethal incidents over the years. A hole in a chest seems like one that would stick, even if it is Other Him. 

Harley’s tried to explain it all to him before she dragged him to dazzle her pitiful mob of direction-seeking copycats. About the nuke, and about the unborn baby, and an Operation game gone a teensy bit too far. And Joker had been impressed.

But not nearly as impressed as he is now, beholding the real fruit of those hard-won labors. Not Superman going coockoo. Not a world scorched half to death. Not the ashes over Metropolis, and not the grim laughter of heroes finally exposed for the hypocritical frauds they are.

This. 

Batsy O-Two is kicking him to the floor and twisting his arms behind Joker’s back, and Joker decides — hazily, gurgly, bloodily — to find where Other Him’s been buried and shower the spot with flowers. He needs to show his gratitude somehow. This really is a masterpiece of a legacy. 

To break the world is one thing. Cute trick, impressive enough, but easy to do with the right kind of equipment and a go-getter attitude, which Joker has always had in spades. To break Superman obviously required more effort and ingenuity, and hats off, _chapeau bas_ , standing ovation for the kind of dedication and creative thought that went into that particular gig. 

To break Batman…

Joker shudders, and laughs wetly into the dirty floor, painting over it with more of his own blood. 

Now _that_ is legacy.

Considering it all, the pain brings with it not just the usual burning, electric pleasure, but also a cleansing kind of catharsis as Batsy O-Two rains kicks and punches on him. He observes this Batman when he can, blurry, bloodied glimpses of fury and heartbreak and misery that would have run the world with blood if they belonged to any lesser creature. Oh yes, this Batman is broken. Something snapped inside him a long time ago, and there’s so many more holes in him of the kind that can never be patched up, and he’s a work of art like this, with desperation tear-blind in his eyes, a study in hurt and loneliness and one man’s raging, _mad_ crusade to make the world make sense again…

Poor sap doesn’t even realize that being the only sane man left by definition makes you the mad one.

Or maybe he does. Maybe he suspects. There’s a naked desperation to his punches and words and eyes that suggest he might, and he’s rebelling against it with all the stubborn defiance Joker’s own Bat has always had. God, his heart weeps at the sheer glory of this man. This creature. This kindred soul, tarnished in just the right places to understand what Joker’s been trying to make him see in all their years together. 

“You,” comes the haggard shard of a word, just as he bends and bruises Joker’s body the way he himself has been bent and bruised, over and over and over, etching it all into Joker to shape him into the mirror he had lost. “You. You.” 

And Joker wants to say, _Of course it’s me, silly_ , and he wants to laugh, and he wants to ask. He wants to poke and poke and poke until he finds the right seam to pry open, and see what else might come tumbling out. Except he doesn’t need to. Except he thinks he knows exactly what kind of seams are coming unraveled in that rigid tapestry that’s been keeping this particular Bat together. It’s clear in the way Batsy O-Two looks at him.

They had taken away Batsy O-Two’s Joker.

And the thing is, the thing that everyone in _his_ sorry excuse for reality has accepted, is You Do Not Take Away a Batman’s Joker. You just don’t. It’s wrong, it’s bad taste, and it just isn’t done. The rule is that they go out together or not at all, because making either one go without the other is just cruel, and plain illogical. Because only the two of them are real, only the two of them matter in this great big three-ring circus, and everyone else, well, they’re just necessary supporting also-rans in the grand spectacle that he and Batman are staging together. Which means that if you take one away the other is left with nothing, nothing, nothing. 

Only inconsequential shadows. Only ghosts. 

The thought is enough to chill Joker’s bones until he’s shivering into the arms now holding him upright by the collar of his shirt, and trembling, he reaches out to run a gentle finger down Batsy O-Two’s cheek.

“Oh, my sweet,” he whispers as his skin burns and burns and burns with Batman’s pain. “My darling love. What have they done to you?”

Batman’s exposed, sky-blue eyes go wide. It’s unsettling to see them like this, naked, unfiltered by the white lenses in the cowl, but Joker does appreciate it. It lets him admire the pain in them down to the tiniest twitch, and catch the exact moment when the man before him crumbles, brought crashing down by a smile and a single gentle touch.

“Not them,” he spits in Joker’s face, slamming him up against the wall. And then again. And again. “Not them. You. You did this. You did all of this. And then you —”

He grabs the hair at the back of Joker’s head and twists it, pulls it hard enough that Joker feels some of it give. So much strength in this body, pulsing under the armor. So much rage. 

So, so much grief.

The grip in his hair eases, for just a fraction of a heartbeat, before it turns vicious tight. There’s a hand closing around his neck again. 

And a voice hissing into his throat, “And then you left me alone.”

Joker closes his eyes. He lets this moment flood him, seep into every pore, fill out his mind, imprint there in a blazing flame with all the pain and bruises and the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

He swallows and it tastes bitter. A little salty, too. Because he’s swallowing a moment he’s fought and fought and fought for all his adult, _real_ life and never got — until now. Until he’s been given one that isn’t even his.

The moment of Batman finally admitting just how much he needs him.

He wonders, hazily, of Other Him knew what would happen, and if he let it unfold regardless, or on purpose. He wonders if that was the whole point of it — to teach Batman this lesson in the hardest, cruelest way possible. He wonders what happened to Other Him to drive him to that kind of absolute sacrifice. He wonders if he’d ever consider something similar himself. 

“My love,” he whispers hoarsely, pressing his trembling palm into Batman’s cheek. His voice tastes like blood in his own mouth. “Shhhhhh. It’s all right. I’m here now. It’s me. It’s all right.”

There’s breathing against his throat, hard, fast and furious. 

Then, a sob. Quiet and torn, wrangled out of the very pits of the last of Batman’s denial.

And Batman is stepping closer, pressing into him, still holding onto Joker’s hair and neck, and this time Joker opens his arms for him. He gathers him close and cups the rubbery-sleek cowl to stroke it. He runs his fingers over the tears that slip past the kevlar walls, over the hot skin he can reach. He kisses the top of the cowl’s forehead and inhales the sweet smell of him until he’s drunk with it, Batman’s huge armored body tucked into his spindly one, and he imagines they must look rather a lot like a beetle ensnared by a spider.

“How long has it been?” he asks quietly. 

Batman breathes out. It takes him a few tries to find his voice, and that, oh, that makes Joker’s heart break and reassemble again in all the right ways. 

“Five years,” is the answer whispered into his throat, hoarse like a frog’s croak or like boots on gravel and yet sweet, oh, so sweet.

“My poor Bat,” Joker coos, full of genuine sympathy. “My poor darling.”

And Batman understands, his hands letting go and then closing into fistfuls at Joker’s back, and they’re doing the impossible and pressing closer still. 

And Joker thinks, he could cry now, too. He could. The beauty of this moment is enough to make his eyes burn, to pump his heart full of gas so it expands and expands until it’s too big for his chest. But he won’t, because they can’t both be crying, and this Batman deserves this moment, and so Joker will hold his heart in somehow and swallow it down because finally he’s needed and it’s a different kind of spotlight and he’s not gonna ruin it with flop sweat. 

Flop tears. Whatever.

He holds this Batsy close and spares a thought for his own Bat, who still hasn’t learned. Who still doesn’t understand. And like everything else between them, the thought tastes bittersweet.

The idea of his own death doesn’t inspire anything particular in Joker. It never has. No dread, no moroseness, none of that dark swirly stuff that plagues him sometimes when he’s feeling down and uninspired and unloved. He does wonder now what Other Him thought and felt when it happened, and whether he’d think it was worth it if he could see his handiwork.

Would _he_ go to such lengths to open his own Batsy’s eyes?

He isn’t sure. He doesn’t think he has enough desperation yet, of the kind that would send him to the grave just for this, because while the lesson would be sweet, he would no longer be around to bask in its fruit. And if so, what’s the point? And in any case, he’s not as cruel as to do this to his Batsy…

But maybe he’s _just_ cruel enough to fake his own death. Pretend to go out in a spectacular fashion and then watch his Batman come apart from a safe distance. Ha! Wouldn’t that be a lark? He’s been presumed dead before, though, so he’d need to make it convincing. Real enough to fool even Bats, who can, after all, smell him from worlds away, the same way Joker can smell him. 

This… will require some thought.

Later. He’ll have lots of time to plan and prepare once they get home. For now, he has another Bat in his arms, clinging to him in a hard, painful way that’s not quite a chokehold and not quite a hug either, and crying into his neck, and Joker is going to make the most of what he’s been blessed with while he can.

He wonders if it’s cheating if he’s comforting a different Bat, and if his own would be jealous.

That only makes the whole thing all the sweeter, and Joker only feels a little guilty when he strokes Batsy O-Two’s face and kisses his cheek.

He has more than enough love in his heart for a dozen Batmen.

“How could you,” Batsy O-Two breathes into him, a sob and an accusation all in one. “How could you do all that and leave me alone to pick up the pieces?”

Joker hums against him, kissing first one closed eye, then the other. “I’m sorry, love,” he whispers. “I’m here now. I’ll put you back together and everything will be okay.”

For a while, at least. He can’t very well stay with this Batsy forever and leave his own Batman to the same crushing solitude.

… Can he?

The blood from his mouth and broken nose is leaving trails on Batsy’s skin and cowl where his lipstick can’t reach. Thoughtfully, Joker dabs his finger in one of the stains and smears it over the cowl’s ear.

Batman breathes out. He pulls Joker even closer, stealing the breath from Joker’s battered chest, and it’s getting so hard to breathe Joker wonders if it’s the tears or broken ribs. Not that it matters. It all amounts to the same thing, in the end.

“I hate you,” Batman whispers, just as his hand inches forward to curl on Joker’s chest, right over his heart. 

Right over the place where Superman would have ripped Other Him’s one out.

“I know,” Joker coos, shivering, placing his own hand over Batman’s and inviting it to splay there, warm and metallic and possessive. “He loved you, too.”

Batsy O-Two’s impossible, forget-me-not blue eyes snap to his. They’re wide, and glistening wet, and his mouth thins into a clench that looks carved into stone. 

Joker bears that look with a steady one of his own. He knows the reminder hurt, but it was necessary. Playing along in a fantasy is all well and good, and he does want to comfort this Bat, but lines need to be drawn. He isn't the same Joker and he won't pretend to be. For both himself and Other Him, and for his own Batman.

After all, as tempting and gorgeous and beautifully broken as this Batman is, they are both taken, and Joker will be no one's understudy.

He thinks Batsy O-Two can read this in him. He probably understands. But his reaction is nothing like Joker expected it would be. 

He only has a snapshot of a moment’s warning before the anger he sees in Batsy O-Two explodes into a flurry of black-clad movement. The hand on his chest pushes him back into the wall. Batsy’s other hand comes around his skull to shield it from the impact as much as it’s meant to keep him in place.

And that’s so that when Batsy O-Two closes his mouth over Joker’s, Joker has nowhere to run.

Not that he wants to. He would never, ever want to, not from this, not from an admission that tastes like blood and sweat and salt between them, not from the defiant longing that burns his mouth inside and out, not from the hand pressing against his heart through layers of skin and shirt and vest and jacket and glove. He doesn't mind giving this Bat as much, because he recognizes the action for what it is. He opens up his mouth and takes in all the remaining hurt Batsy’s fists haven’t managed to imprint on him. He kisses back, offering love and comfort and reassurance in return until Batsy softens into him and lets him move to caress his face and hold him close. They kiss like this until Batsy gives all that he has left, until he spends himself and slumps exhausted into Joker’s arms, and then they trade kisses that are far softer and gentler but which still burn with the exact same fire.

Joker registers wetness on his cheeks, and wonders if it’s his. He wouldn’t mind. Not when the hand is still there over his heart like it never wants to move again, and not when Batsy’s chapped, rough lips caress his own like they want to compensate for decades’ worth of frustrated attachment into someone that’s the next best thing, now that it’s far too late.

What a pair they make, Joker thinks bleakly, swallowing before he steals another kiss. Greedy, both of them. Greedy and desperate enough to fool themselves into thinking they’re getting what they want out of the other, even if they both know they’re only dealing with substitutes. 

The heartbreaking thing is that Joker can still have this with his own Bat, somewhere down the line, somehow, someday.

But this Bat will never get the chance to confess to his Joker, will never get absolution and reassurance from where it matters most. 

So for once Joker doesn’t mind being the next best thing. Not if it’ll let this Batman find some semblance of peace, even if just for a little while.

Or longer. He thinks maybe he could stay a little longer. 

After all, being constantly rejected does get old after a while, and maybe he’s entitled to a little validation of his own.

So he accepts the kisses just like he accepted the fists, and gives back some of his own, and enjoys the feeling of Batman holding him tight against all that unwieldy armor, wondering how much more he can steal before Batsy O-Two comes to his senses…

“Jesus _fuck_!” 

Something crashes by the door. They freeze in each other’s arms, and their heads turn.

Green Arrow stands in the doorway, leaning against the jamb like he’s stumbled, and for once his eyes are so big that they out-do the ridiculousness of his goatee. 

“Oh God,” he stammers, looking at Batman and Joker tangled against the wall together, their mouths all blood and lipstick red. “Oh shit. Sorry. I just. You were awfully quiet in there and I drew the short straw, and I just — I wanted to make sure — oh _fuck_ I’m never getting this out of my head now, am I?” 

There’s a look in Batsy’s blue, blue eyes, a look of steel and fire all at once, and his mouth tenses like it’s brimming with something feral. For a wonderful, heart-stopping moment Joker actually thinks he’s going to yell at his friend to get out and leave them alone. He looks like he might actually start throwing batarangs at Goatee’s head.

But then he looks to Joker. 

And slowly, the steel drains away to leave nothing but dull heartache, with only some embers still glimmering where just a moment ago there was a blaze. 

Joker doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything sadder in his entire life.

 _I’m sorry,_ those eyes seem to be saying. _I know you’re not him. But I needed you all the same._

Joker lets his thumb stroke across his mouth, streaking blood. He whispers, “I know.”

Batman steps away from him then, a safe distance. The last thing to go is the hand that lingers, just another beat, over Joker’s heart.

Joker doesn’t protest when Batman then gets behind him and once again twists his arms behind his back. He hardly feels it anymore, or all of the previous violence. His heart is draining now, too, like water swirling down a sinkhole. It leaves him empty in the worst kind of way, thick and sluicy with ache and melancholia, because the moment is well and truly over now and they need to get back to the truth of it. 

Which is that he isn’t this Batman’s Joker, and can’t be. 

But maybe, he thinks as he’s marched to a cell, a furiously silent and Very Green Arrow trailing them, he can still do his best to give him a taste. 

“He did love you,” he tells Batsy O-Two as the cell door closes on him. He smiles. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Batsy O-Two studies him between the bars, and the sadness in him makes everything in Joker twist up and tug and tug and tug.

“Yes,” he says eventually, and then, with an effort that looks almost inhuman, he turns away and leaves.

Joker watches him go, settling down on the cot.

He brings a finger up to touch his throbbing lips, and spares a thought for Other Him in thanks. 

“You poor bastards,” he whispers, looking up to the ceiling. “Both of you.”

He lays himself down with some effort, joints cracking, bones and muscle flaring up in pain. 

That’s fine. That’s perfect. He can bask in it as he whiles away the time until Harley comes find him, as he’s sure she will.

He has lots of planning to do.


End file.
